No Role Model: Germany Loses Christians At a Record Rate

The number of Catholics and Protestants in Germany sank to a new low in 2016, with the latter hemorrhaging almost 1.6 percent of members in comparison with the previous year. The Catholic Church lost 162,093 members according to numbers released by the German Bishop’s Conference on July 21.

According to observers the fate of the German Church is a warning sign for Pope Francis whose so called reform program seeks to implement on a world scale what the German Church introduced already decades ago causing a disastrous outcome.

[More statistics for Catholics from Catholic World News – July 24, 2017]

Germany: 162,000 Catholics left Church, 537 parishes closed in 2016

162,093 Catholics left the Church in Germany during 2016—down from 181,925 in 2015, according to statistics released by the bishops’ conference on July 21.

28.5% of Germans are Catholic, and the Catholic population stands at 23,582,000, down from 27,533,000 in 1996.

537 parishes closed in 2016. Over the past two decades, over 3,000 parishes have closed, with the number declining from 13,329 to 10,280.

There are now 13,856 priests in Germany, down from 14,087 the previous year. The Sunday Mass attendance rate was 10.2% in 2016, down from 10.4% in 2015.

Some other statistics:

The number of baptisms declined from 259,313 in 1996 to 171,531 in 2016. However, the number of baptisms has risen for two consecutive years.

The number of adult converts fell from 3,860 in 1996 to 2,574 in 2016, and the number of adults who returned to the Church fell from 6,981 to 6,461.

First Communions declined by over 100,000, from 291,317 in 1996 to 176,297 in 2016.